The Queen is passionate about crochet and she is always looking for ways to "hook" her readers into reading about her weekly crochet ramblings.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Guest Blogger Part 2: Karen Ballard - World War II Crocheting with Attitude

Thursday, December 12, 2013

"BEST GUEST POSTS"As promised, Karen Ballard is back as my guest to inform and educate us about attitudes about crochet during the World War II era. If you missed her first article which focused on World War I, you can access it here.

Karen Ballard

World War II Crocheting with Attitude by Karen Ballard

After about 25 years of collecting World War Workbasket
Campaign items associated with doing needlework for service personnel, wounded,
refugees and patriotic home-front, I have amassed a very large WWII collection. Included are books, magazines, individual patterns, posters, sheet music,
postcards, knitting bags; and yes, even a small number of patriotic crocheted
items. While knitting patterns abound, there are extremely few
crochet patterns, even fewer than those found for WWI and I have found no explanation for this.

Out of 21 U.S. knitting books containing patterns for
service men, only W. Newbold Ely, Pointers for Crocheting and Knitting
has a single crocheted helmet (like a ski mask) for
service men.

Ely Crocheted Helmet

Out of 44 individual patterns published by American Red
Cross (ARC), Bundles for Britain (organized in New York before the U.S. entered
the war), Bundles for Bluejackets (this organization changed its name to
Bundles for America, early in the war, retaining a Bundles for Bluejackets
Naval Division), and Citizens’s Committee for Army and Navy, only one pattern
is crocheted: a Woman’s circular shawl for refugees. (similar to the shawl pattern for WWI
“devastated France”.

No WWII British crochet patterns were found, and out of 6
Canadian Red Cross booklets only the one for babies and children has a couple
crochet patterns. One French-Canadian
knitting magazine contains a crocheted serviceman’s sweater pattern.

Serviceman's Sweater Pattern

One French magazine has a crocheted helmet.

French Crocheted Helmet

An AustralianRed Cross Society Knitting Book
includes a crocheted Bed Socks pattern and an Aussie knitting book
has a crocheted scarf pattern.

Scarf Pattern

While the above may sound like a lot of crochet patterns,
please note that this is all of the crochet patterns found among hundreds of
knitting and sewing patterns for service personnel, wounded and refugees.

No posters, postcards, sheet music, etc. depict or refer to
crochet. The only photos of WWII crochet
I have seen are two photos of Women’s Army Corps volunteers having a crochet
party.

Women's Army Corps crochet party

Although their crochet is not
patriotic, it shows that some people were still crocheting, despite the war.

Evidence of WWII patriotic home-front crocheting is a little
more easily found than for functional crocheted military/wounded/refugee garments at least for the USA. There are women’s and children’s clothing
patterns with designs influenced by military uniforms and the pictured lady’s
stylized tricorne hat, reminiscent of the American Revolution.

and a red/white/blue rayon “gimp” homemade brooch
pincushion-hat with hanging thimble-pouch (pictured in the center); perfect for wearing to an ARC
sewing bee!

Perhaps exemplifying attitudes toward wartime crochet is
this United States Rubber Company advertisement, stating “Once you used it [crochet thread] for bedspreads, now it makes the machine gun belts
our fighter pilots use,” clearly implying
that during war we no longer crocheted.

1941 War Effort

On January 8, 1945, Life magazine ran a cover story on “Fancy
Crochets Jaunty, Stylish Clothes” designed by Greta Plattry, a 1937 emigre from Germany who “reintroduced” American women to crocheted fashions.

Life magazine -January 8, 1945

Although this was not part of the Workbasket
Campaign, it indicates that when drawing near the end of the long war, American
women were ready to put down their khaki, olive-green, and navy blue yarn to
crochet (and knit) pretty and colorful fashions.

You have really helped several of individuals like me, who have been searching internet from past quite a long time to find detailed information on this particular topic. Thanks a ton.world war ii vedios

John and Shawn, I am glad you enjoyed my guest entry to the Crochet Queen's blog. Did you notice my hat at the beginning of the article? It is a Vintage WWII one with stubby knitting needles on top of it. In case you're interested, I also published an article on "Patriotic Knitting Tools" in Mar/Apr 2012 PieceWork magazine and provided Historic consultation for Melanie Gall's "Knitting All the Day" CD of WWI knitting music and her soon-to-be-released CD of WWII knitting songs. If you wish to contact me, my email is: threadwinder@aol.com

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About Me

As Founder of the Crochet Guild of America, I share my passion for crochet wherever and whenever: teaching, writing, crocheting in public! I'm proud to introduce my third book, The Fine Art of Crochet (published in June 2013 by Author House).